Paul is Dead
by Nyah
Summary: What do you do when your God dies? You fake it.


Disclaimer: Written for love not profit. None of it's mine

Spoilers: minor through season 2

**2027**

Blue lighting crackled and raced itself about the room, leaping and stumbling around a ring of jet engines. The air seemed to be humming and Derek had the unsettling notion that he was standing in a huge microwave and his insides were about to start boiling. He had to shout over the sound of whatever-it-was powering through too many volts to think about. But he would have shouted anyway. "Where's my brother!"

The outline of a man, highlighted by the searing flashes of blue, moved forward and became a face, a soldier, a leader. "In 1986."

"19- what?" Derek was more confused and therefore angrier. "What is that? A bunker number?"

"A year," Conner clarified.

"I don't- I don't know what that means. Where is he?"

Connor inclined his head toward the light show going on behind the glass. "You know we were looking for a weapon?" Derek nodded. "This is it."

The lightning skipped and pooled between the turbines, casting strange shadows on the walls. Derek felt like a child that was being shown some shiny, remarkable toy in an attempt to distract him from a tantrum. "Look… sir. I just want to know what happened to my brother."

Suddenly the unreal light in the room died, leaving only the pale yellow of a few bare bulbs. Connor spoke from the darkness. "The test is complete," he said and there was satisfaction in his voice. "That," he said and Derek thought he was probably gesturing at the configuration of engines again but his eyes hadn't adjusted to the dark yet, "is where your brother went. It let's us create a … bubble that's _unstuck_ in time. We can send it back- and anything inside- to before all this started."

The General had made a few speeches in his time that inspired grins and snickers but as far as Derek knew he'd never been heard to crack a joke. He was serious. "How is that possible? Sir?"

"It's complicated Lieutenant," Connor said but Derek's eyes had adjusted and he saw uncertainty on the General's face. His brows were drawn too low, trying to hide confused eyes. He didn't know either.

"With all due respect, sir," Derek said because he'd been a soldier a long time and knew how information was handled. "Why are you telling me this? What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to go back," Connor said simply.

"Go back?"

"Yes, Reese. Back. Twenty years."

"Why?" Derek said and then remembered himself. "Sir."

"Because I'm not who you think I am."

"Sir, I don't…."

"John Connor died in 2015," said the man who had been John Connor. "I've been Connor for twelve years but I'm not him."

Derek hated Connor. He had hated him ever since Kyle turned up, back from the dead and Century work camp, glued to Connor's side. He hated him for his brother's secrets and his brother's devotion. But Connor was the rallying point of the resistance. He was the one who had somehow figured out what was happening and how to do something about it. He was the one who bullied and cajoled and convinced the rest that they could win one day and go home. And he was dead. He was dead for twelve years now if this Connor, this doppelganger, impersonator, false messiah, was speaking the truth.

"The first time he got out of the camps he brought us the specs for plasma rifles." The General said. "He was brilliant when it came to machines. Men loved him. They loved the _idea _of him. Phoenix out of the ashes. Born for the fight. All that stuff."

"So why take his name?" Derek said but he was already starting to figure it out. "Why didn't anyone notice?"

"Not a lot of people knew him back then and most of them are dead." The General shook his head, maybe in apology, maybe regret. "His name inspired people. He was the son of the woman who tried to warn the world but no one believed her. I remember hearing about her on the news before the bombs fell… Sarah Connor." The man's voice might sound wistful, nostalgic, but the eyes were still the flat eyes of the bastard who ate men and metal for breakfast. "There was no one better at guerilla tactics than John Connor. I learned every dirty trick I know from him. But he was no General. He couldn't have led an army. He didn't have the training for large- scale maneuvers. He didn't know what to do with multiple units. He took risks. He had luck. He couldn't have led an army," The General said again. "He couldn't, but his name could."

Connor is dead. Long live Connor.

"So you want me to go back?" Derek said, remembering again why he came- the brother that was an acid eaten hole in his guts. "Ten years you said. But Kyle's in 1986?"

"You're not going back for Kyle," the General said like Derek had already agreed. But then, it had never really been a request. "You're going back for the Connors. To protect them and to help them."

"But, sir, you just said-"

"Do you know what would have happened if word had gotten out that Connor was dead? Do you Reese?"

"Chaos," Derek said without having to think. "Sir."

The General nodded. "Chaos, Panic. The end of our last shot. Things were just coming together when we lost Connor. There were a lot of people that had their own ideas about how to deal with the machines. Some wanted to strike a truce. Some wanted to split up and go to ground. But Connor was the one they listened too, back before there was an army.

"The machines know his name. They've got their own way to change the past. They'll go after Connor. They already have." The General's gaze was calm and hard. This was a man who dashed his army against the gates of hell and still had them signing up in droves to fight and die. "I need him alive."

"Well, obviously he lives, right?" Now that he'd given some thought to the General's time machine, his brain was starting to fold neatly into a mobius strip. "I mean- you knew him."

"Connor taught me a lot about machines," The General said, non sequitor. "I can take a T-888 apart and rearrange a couple of bits until it's fighting for our side. I can assemble a plasma rifle faster than any man on the planet. But I can't tell you how that thing," he indicated the engines, "works. I know it works," The General looked at Derek pointedly like he expected him to finish the sentence, "because you told me, Reese."

"I _what_?" Derek shifted on the balls of his feet. He didn't like that this conversation kept reaching news heights of confusion. He didn't like that he was the one with all the questions. And he really didn't like that the General probably wanted it that way.

The General gave a curt nod but it wasn't to Derek. A man's shape moved in the shadows of the room. He was tall with iron-gray hair. When he stepped into the light he did it with a limp. Derek thought of every science fiction movie he'd seen as a child and wondered why he wasn't imploding or dissolving into pixels and mist. The man was Derek Reese.

The General nodded again and walked into the shadows. His job was done. "You have to protect the Connors," the man, Derek, said like he talked to another version of himself everyday. "They need you. They think they're cautious. They think they're ready. But they're just two more Innocents that have a little more information than the others."

Innocents. That's what the soldiers called the billions of people that died on Judgment Day and the days that followed. "But Connor's not even the one," Derek said. "It's this other guy. General… Connor."

"The General told you," the man said and his voice was harsh but there was something like fondness in his eyes. "It's the name we need. John Connor has to be the hero. He has to die a hero so this Connor can keep it all together."

"So I- we- _I _have to go take care of him."

"Him," the man nodded. "And her too. _Sarah_." Sarah Connor was a talisman to the soldiers. A martyr. The Blessed Virgin. But it wasn't quite worship on the man's face. Derek wondered what it was he'd be feeling when his own face looked like that. Respect? Gratitude? Love? "John Connor became what he was because of Sarah. Keep her safe. It won't be easy. She won't be easy."

"What about…?"

"Kyle," the man finished. "You do it right and Connor makes it to 2015. You do it better than right and maybe all this never happens."

He could save Kyle. He could save everybody. There was a hint of a smile on the man's face, the ghost of an expression he'd forgotten but that came back to haunt this moment because in this moment things could be changed.

"One more thing Derek," the man said. "They can't know. It's Sarah's belief in John that makes the rest of us believe. They can't know."

Derek nodded and Connor turned away. "Wait. Who's the General? Should I be lookin' out for him back there too?"

"He's just some kid," the man said. "Some kid that didn't know the world was going to end until it did. The machines don't know about him. He'll be safe." Derek's older self followed General Connor's path into the dark.

#

2007

Derek looked around the barracks at Presidio Alto and knew why it was John Connor whom the desperate men that lived in the years after Judgment followed into battle. He knew as much about guns and ammo as the army boys but he was a sixteen year old boy on his way to becoming a man. They were boys who were fast becoming machines.

One of the cadets- Pyle- asked about Derek's kill count like human beings were spare parts for the scrap yard. Derek looked at the boy and saw arrogance masquerading as confidence. He saw hardness masked as strength. His response was not kind.

When Derek met another version of himself and shattered his own world after it had already been blown to bits, there were a lot of things he forgot to tell himself. He didn't say that John looked like Kyle the way the General never had. He didn't say that Sarah was a woman under all the legends. But most grievously, he didn't say that Derek would love these two people who wouldn't save the world.

Derek looked at his nephew, earnest, desperate and fierce. Then he looked at Cadet Gregory Pyle with his familiar staring eyes and cocksure grin. He was glad that it was this boy and not John who would carry the world on his shoulders.

End


End file.
